Thursday, December 26, 2013

Sukkot

No we're not celebrating Sukkot in December, I'm just way behind in my blogging :)

Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles)

Lev 23:33 Then Yahwh spoke to Moses, saying,

Lev 23:34 "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days to Yahwh.

Lev 23:35 On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it.

Lev 23:36 For seven days you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahwh. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to Yahwh. It is a sacred assembly, and you shall do no customary work on it.

Lev 23:37 'These are the feasts of Yahwh which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, to offer an offering made by fire to Yahwh, a burnt offering and a grain offering, a sacrifice and drink offerings, everything on its day—

Lev 23:38 besides the Sabbaths of Yahwh, besides your gifts, besides all your vows, and besides all your freewill offerings which you give to Yahwh.

Lev 23:39 'Also on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land, you shall keep the feast of Yahwh for seven days; on the first day there shall be a sabbath-rest, and on the eighth day a sabbath-rest.

Lev 23:40 And you shall take for yourselves on the first day the fruit of beautiful trees, branches of palm trees, the boughs of leafy trees, and willows of the brook; and you shall rejoice before Yahwh your God for seven days.

Lev 23:41 You shall keep it as a feast to Yahwh for seven days in the year. It shall be a statute forever in your generations. You shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

Lev 23:42 You shall dwell in booths for seven days. All who are native Israelites shall dwell in booths,

Lev 23:43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I Yahwh your God.' "

Lev 23:44 So Moses declared to the children of Israel the feasts of Yahwh.

Every year we talk about getting a wall tent with a little wood stove and camp outside for Sukkot, but we didn't do it again this year. The boys had every intention of pitching our hunting tent and spending the week in it, but the first two days of Sukkot were very windy and rainy, not good weather to set up a tent in :(

So we made our Sukkah in the basement again. We actually have a lot of fun building and dwelling in it. I didn't get a picture of it after we were done, but we decorated it nice. Paul and I brought down our mattress (no use being uncomfortable for a week) and the kids used pads and sleeping bags.

7 comments:

When I heard that there was a blog where a family was celebrating Sukkot in December in their basement I didn't believe it. Well, I guess it was true. The point of sleeping in the sukkah is to see the stars, unless you live in a glass house no stars will be seen. The sukkah is a symbol of a harvest festival, and there is no harvest season in December. I could go on and on at how many things are wrong with this scenario. Furthermore, you base your Sukkot celebration on the birth of Jesus, a holiday that was around for a thousand years before he was born. And he wasn't born on Dec. 25th. Any Christian scholar worth a nickel would tell you that Dec. 25th was to coincide with pagan rituals and that early Christians did not celebrate his birth at all. Furthermore, the first celebrations of his birth were in Spring and early Fall during the early lambing or harvest times. So you're basing your re-interpreted dates on a celebration of pagan rites and not anything scriptural, historical, or logical.

I looked at your archives and even saw that you were subjecting a 2 and 4 y.o. to fasting when even the most Orthodox of Jews would not expect a child under 12 to fast. If a child younger than that wants to "practice" fasting they are allowed to try but not shamed for "failing" to do so.

Your 'practice', or should I say mutation of my religion is offensive. The OP gave some really good examples as to why your practices are not in keeping with the Jewish faith (or any of our sects for that matter). Better you should work on being righteous goyim then pretending to be Jews.

Sukkot is the celebration of the harvest. What on earth are you harvesting in December? Sukkot has absolutely NOTHING to do with Jesus. NOTHING. Also, sukkas are supposed to be built outside so you can see the stars. If you're going to appropriate another religion, at least do it right. This is so offensive and disgusting I can't even believe it. You are not Jews. You are not even practicing Jews. Please stop. This is offensive on so many levels. Believe what you want, but call it something else. This is NOT Judaism or even anything close to it.

First of all they did not celebrate Sukkot in December. They celebrated Sukkot in October. Which was in accordance with the Samaritan and Elephantine communities calendars. There is also nowhere in the Tanakh that says that you have to be able to see the stars through the roof of your sukkah. If you read their article about Yeshua's birth you would see that they agree with you about the origins of Christmas and that they are against celebrating it.

So what if they encourage their young children to fast on Yom Kippur. It is a mitsvah that they are going to have to keep sooner or later. See Mishle(Proverbs 22:6).

To Anonymous,

They are not trying to practice your religion. So don't get offended. They are trying to Follow the Torah the best they know how. It is sad that this offends you. Why in the world would they want to practice your religion when their religion and their Mashiakh call people who practice your religion sons of hell? See Matityahu(Matthew)23:15 As far as I can tell They have not claimed to be Jewish at all. They are just trying to live as Biblically(not Rabbinically) as possible. You don't say that the Muslims are appropriating your religion because they abstain from pork. So stop saying that this family is trying to steal your religion. Because they are not. They think that your religion is wrong for crying out loud.

To Oy Vey, Sorry I confused you. We don’t celebrate Sukkot in December. I’m just very far behind in my blogging. I agree with you that Jesus was not born in December and I believe that the closest we can come to figuring out his birth scripturally, puts His birth in either the spring or fall. I address that in my blog post http://quiverfullofkids.blogspot.com/2014/01/celebrating-jesus-yeshuas-birth.htmlYou mention that the earliest celebrations of Jesus’ birth were either in the fall or spring. Do you have a reference for that? I haven’t seen that reference, but it would definitely support my supposition.You claim that the point of sleeping in a sukkah or “booth” is to “see the stars”. Do you have a reference for that in scripture? I can’t find it. In Leviticus it says that we are to do it to remember that God made the Israelites live in booths when He brought them out of Egypt.

Lev 23:43 that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I Yahwh your God.' "

I could be wrong, but I always picture them in tents. The booths were their shelter for 40 years. I doubt they were open air. At the same time, I know that sleeping in our basement is not very authentic. But, we live in Alaska. Sukkot always falls in either September or October and it is cold here then. We tried sleeping out under the stars one year and made it until about four in the morning http://quiverfullofkids.blogspot.com/2010/10/fall-festivals.html We would like to get a wall tent that you can put a wood stove in to do a better job of reenacting the booths of the Israelites. What we are doing now does get us into the required “temporary dwelling” and causes us to remember how God brought the Israelites out of Egypt which is the important thing.The post I just linked to also describes our then 2 and 4 year old fasting. I didn’t go into the fast of Yom Kippur with any preconceived notions of how much the little ones would eat. I didn’t want to tell them they couldn’t do it before they even started and they were eager to participate. I kept on eye on them throughout the day. They seemed to be fine. When Sarah snitched a cracker I told her she should have asked first, but that that was fine since she was so little. Personally, I think she would have been fine and been able to stick it out with the rest of us, but it’s better to be conservative with the little ones than to be accused of child abuse. Benjamin was four and it was obvious to me that the only reason he snitched a cracker was because Sarah (2 yrs) led him to it. Even then, I wasn't condemning of him. I just gave him a questioning look and he decided on his own not to eat any more. This year Sarah was 5 and Benjamin 7. They both did great and didn't even complain until we were about 2 hours from eating again. We were all feeling hunger by then. We Americans are pretty soft and have no idea what real hunger is. I can’t imagine making them wait until they are 12 to join in.

To Anonymous,We are not trying to practice “Judaism” nor are we trying to be “Righteous Goyim”. We simply believe the Bible is God’s Word from start to finish. We read it and try to apply it to our lives. We recognize that there is much we don’t understand in it and we are certainly doing some things wrong. But we pray and ask God to help us understand and we keep learning everyday. I believe that as we have been obedient to Him, He has opened up our understanding of His Word.